The Fugitive

"thump, thump, thump" surprised Peter and me as he unlocked the door to the house after church today. The "thump, thump, thump" was coming from inside of the house.

"Is Lily out?" Peter asked.
"Shouldn't be" I replied.

The dogs are crate trained and are never, ever free to roam the house when we aren't home. It was at that exact moment that Lily's face flashed across the front door. The "thump, thump, thump" was Lily's tail beating against the wall. Lily has a unique talent for breaking out of her crate. She learned how to open locks so we added a carabiner. She learned how to bust open the bottom of her crate so we moved the carabiner. Evidently, today she learned how to bust open the entire front side of her crate; looks like we'll be adding a second carabiner.

Cold Gray Winter Days

It's cold here. It's been cold here. Fountains are frozen and snow is on the ground in Midtown. In fact, on Friday Memphis City Schools were closed not due to the {minimal} snow fall but the temperature. Memphis has not had weather like this in 15 years. There have been hours of snowfall, single digit lows, highs in the teens, and negative windchill temperatures. This is the Mid-South; we are not accustomed to or equipped for this sort of climate.

The dogs have become increasing stir crazy. At first, they embraced the change in weather by playing hours and hours of their favorite indoor game {see the very low quality video below for a snippet}; however, under the bed lost its appeal.

Peter and I decided that we should take the dogs to the dog park so they could burn off some energy. We bundled up and prepared ourselves for the 15°F weather. Typically we avoid the dog park because not everyone follows the 1:1 rule and not all of the dogs are friendly. But, we figured no one would be there due to the cold. We were right. We basically had the whole park to ourselves, including the 3 lakes which were completely frozen. The dogs ran for about an hour before their shivering became so intense we had to get them back in the car. Below are a few pictures from our outing and, if you are really interested, another low quality video.

The Holidays 2009: A Recap

Well, well, well, now that we are a few days into 2010 I figured it was time to recap the holidays. This year, rather than travel, Peter and I stayed in Memphis. Below are a some photos from our last few weeks. In order to prepare ourselves for the in-town holiday we opted to deck the house for Christmas- complete with our own tree topped with an angel.


We strung our Christmas cards from the mantel. I had to cut a new ribbon to string the cards; in no way did I anticipated the number of cards we received.


Christmas dinner for two from Wang's Mandarin House.


The dogs spent a good deal of time cuddled up; they love each other.


After a few months of consideration, we painted the red room green. Hoping to prevent another blue room error we bought some samples to try before committing to the entire space.


I think the end result is pretty fantastic.


For New Years we had some friends come into town. Since this wasn't their first visit we skipped the touristy things and just hung out. We managed to host a New Years Eve dinner for 15 then headed downtown for a party at a Memphis landmark, Raiford's {occasionally refered to by it's actual name: Hollywood Disco}.


Overall it was nice to spend the holidays in Memphis and extremely relaxing; however, next year we'll gladly be back to traveling and the chaos that ensues when we pack up the dogs and visit family.